Keep your eyes up on certain older buildings in Hackney and you might spot something that shouldn't exist: a faded painted sign reading "NE" followed by a number. There's no NE postcode in London today — and yet these ghosts of a postal scheme scrapped more than 150 years ago are still there, weathering away on brickwork across the east of the city.
The story goes back to 1856, when London's postal districts were first carved up to speed up mail sorting. The city was divided into the familiar E, EC, N, NW, S, SE, SW, W and WC — plus a NE district covering areas like Hackney and parts of what's now east and north-east London. It didn't last long. In 1866, Anthony Trollope, then a surveyor for the General Post Office (better known today as the Victorian novelist), oversaw a reorganisation that folded NE into the enlarged E district. The NE code was retired and never returned.
What makes this fun for walkers is that the signage never quite got the memo. Painted directly onto buildings rather than on plates, the old district marks were too much hassle to scrub off, so they were simply left to fade. A small number survive around Hackney and the surrounding streets, legible only to those who know to look. Once you spot one, you start noticing how much of old London's infrastructure — telegraph symbols, parish markers, water company plugs — is layered onto its walls.
The S district met a similar fate, abolished in the 1860s with its territory split between SE and SW, so the NE relics belong to a small club of postal ghosts. For a free afternoon out, it's a neat thread to pull: wander Hackney's backstreets, hunt for a sign that officially doesn't exist, then reward yourself in one of the area's pubs, bakeries or along Regent's Canal. It pairs nicely with a wander through Victoria Park or the Columbia Road flower market on a Sunday.
If urban oddities and hidden history are your thing, this is exactly the kind of low-effort, high-reward detour that turns a regular east London day out into a bit of a treasure hunt. No ticket needed — just a camera and a bit of patience.
